Emotional or Sexual Infidelity? If you have to pick one….

Which is worse, your partner being sexually or emotionally unfaithful? For most people either an emotional or sexual affair can inspire feelings of anger or jealousy. However, “Sugarbabe” author Holly Hill argues that, for men, cheating is normal and thus women should accept that their partner will probably cheat on them. She says, however, that women can regain control by allowing their partners to cheat but controlling the circumstances. According to her, by creating rules about your partner cheating you can structure their infidelity and dissuade them from keeping their affairs secret. In particular, Hill seems to suggest that it is emotional affairs which hurt, and by allowing sexual infidelity she keeps her partner from having an emotional relationship with someone else. For example she says that in her relationship, her boyfriend is allowed to have sex with other women but not sleep over or go on “romantic weekends”.

Although her ideas may seem inconceivable for many couples, there is empirical evidence showing that women are more likely than men to say that emotional jealousy is more distressing than sexual jealousy. So, for some women (particularly if they accept the idea that men are “destined to cheat”, which is really an entirely separate topic for debate and not particularly well supported in the psychology literature), it might seem like the lesser of two evils for a partner to cheat sexually if that discourages a possible emotional affair. Hill also says that in her relationship she too is allowed to be unfaithful, but both sexually and emotionally because her boyfriend is “okay with it”. However, it isn’t very clear how this arrangement reduces potential sexual jealousy for either her or her partner. Sexual jealousy, according to research, is equally distressing for men and women. This is despite the assumptions by many evolutionary theorists that men should be more jealous of sexual infidelity than women. What do you think of Hill’s arrangement? Do evolutionary psychology theories about jealousy support her ideas or not?

3 responses to “Emotional or Sexual Infidelity? If you have to pick one….”

I enjoyed your post. I would also be interested in learning more about why some people remain with their partner after learning about infidelity, and whether people are more likely to end relationships following sexual or emotional infidelity. Perhaps those are topics for a later post if you’re ever short on ideas. You might also be interested in my recent post “Reasons for Love” at https://socialpsychologyeye.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/reasons-for-love/